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I think I’m in love with a former nanny, but…

My little family had a whirlwind day of visiting three in-home daycares (intermixed with frantic work calls with a panicking customer): one SAHM who watches extra kids, a former nanny with an in-home daycare and a former daycare owner with an in-home daycare.

We are very tired.

After Javi and visited with the SAHM yesterday, Joey joined us this morning – and nixed the idea. While we liked her pretty well, her 2.5 year old son was, shall we say, very good at being 2.5. He acted up with Joey (I think he was showing off) but in doing so, got my husband’s protective instincts raging. Would Javi be okay there? Probably. Will we consider it? Nope! One parental veto is enough around here. So, bummer, since they were 7 minutes away.

I was smitten with the former nanny before we even spoke. She has a website! (This is very unusual around here.) And it had all sorts of details! Man, we loved her. She felt like a younger Mary Poppins. Her son is about six weeks older than Javi, we loved her setup, and Javi was really happy (and silly!) there. She gave great answers to the questions you guys suggested, thanks so much for the ideas.

Me: How would you handle an emergency?

Her: (without skipping a beat) I have CPR training so I would do what I could, then I would call an ambulance. They would get here faster than I could get a child to a hospital and I have other kids to take care of.

She was great. We left her house feeling happy and comfy. Unfortunately, her house is a solid 25 minute commute (commute = highways and traffic). Twenty five minutes! Because our current daycare is so nearby, I get the chance to drop Javi off or pick him up (both of which I love to do) if I have a 30 minute break in meetings. With this lengthy trip, we’d have to be more scheduled about drop-off’s and pick-up’s. If I didn’t have a solid hour of availability, I wouldn’t be able to do it, or worse, I’d end up doing it but feeling guilty about multi-tasking on a call. I know me; I would totally do that.

Our casual lives would get a lot more scheduled, something we anticipate when Javi joins an 8:30 – 2:30 program, but we’re struggling to decide whether to head in that direction now.

What do you guys think? Should we keep looking? Should we suck it up and plan for the commute? Should we stick it out for three or four more months at daycare? Are all daycares petrie dishes of grossness like ours? Does anyone have a kid in daycare who isn’t sick at least once a month?

(Oh, P.S.: the third woman smokes. It was obvious the minute we walked into her house in that way smokers never think it is. She was eliminated from consideration immediately – though we stayed for a quick tour out of politeness.)

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4 thoughts on “I think I’m in love with a former nanny, but…”

I commented on the last post too. My son is in an in-home daycare with 4 other children ages 2-4. She doesn’t have any school age kids. He goes full time M-F. In the first few months he got a cold about once a month. They usually turned into ear infections with a fever. Since spring hit, he’s been sick less, maybe once every 2 months. I think germs are going to find Javi no matter what daycare he is at.

I think that all daycares – even home ones – are just breeding grounds for bacteria. Babies get sick because they put things in their mouths and share the germs…. my mom was a SAHM and she said we were always sick from being at the public library and play groups, so I think it’s pretty unavoidable no matter what you do 🙂

The former nanny sounds really good, though the commute is an issue. I would agree with the other posters that germs seem to find little ones no matter what if they go out of their houses for play dates, etc. I am very blessed in that my mother comes to our home to watch our daughter while I’m at work. (I’m a professor so my teaching schedule isn’t 9-5 which works out very well.) My daughter is in a mommy and me class once a week, though, and she has been sick three times since that started in March. I know it’s because she puts everything in her mouth, as do the other kids. It’s frustrating though and the pink eye at your daycare would make me more determined to do something else. I would think an in-home daycare would be less germs because there’s less kids than a full daycare. Maybe it doesn’t work that way. Good luck with your decision!

Changing providers now and again in 3-4 months seems like alot of disruption for little Javi, especially given that the germs won’t be so bad over the summer. You’ve said Javi likes the teachers at his current daycare… It seems like a change at his age – with separation anxiety in full swing- could be really rough. Given that the benfits to switching are likely marginal and with another change planned a few months out, I think I’d just stick out your current situation.

My daughter is in a daycare and is sick alot too. As others have said, I think it’s just part of the equation for babies who hang out with other kids. The upside is that there is a ton of research showing that kids exposed to lots of germs in their first years are healthier the rest of their lives (less allergies, stronger immunity, etc).